I wasn’t planning to follow up my DNA test with any of the family tree stuff, but today I got a message on Ancestry from a distant relative (we share the same great great great grandfather) and he sent me some info on how that line connects to me, plus a picture of some of them. It’s cool because I had next to no information on my dad’s side of the family.
I’m still not fixing to pony up any more cash, or start doing research, but I think this has been a nice Christmas present.
My wife was adopted, and was able to identify her (deceased) biological parents thru DNA submission. Most of the people who had known her had always assumed based on her complexion and features that she might have some. . . American Indian, Jewish, Italian, or Greek ancestry. Nope. Roughly 75% English and Irish, and 25% Scandinavian. One of her biological grandfathers turned out to be a Swedish immigrant.
My sister and her daughter (closest relatives next to my own kids) did the tests and came back what I expected, mostly western European.
They want me to do the test, not that they think I am a half sibling or something, but something to do with they need a sample from a close male relative. Any idea what/why that would be?
I couldn’t care either way if I did the test but my wife thinks it is a waste of money so probably won’t do it.
23andMe will give you a (very rough estimate) of your y-DNA haplogroup. It might be that they just think it would be a fun thing to know the deep origin of your male line, or they, like a lot of budding genetic genealogists, have been tricked into thinking this is a lot more useful and necessary than it actually is.
In reality the 23andMe haplogroup is almost entirely useless, genealogy wise, and taking a real y-dna test is not recommended at this point as there are only 1.8 testers per surname, which, considering a lot of tests come in clusters from surname projects doing targeted testing, means you have about 50-50 odds of having a match at all, and even lower odds of having one you can actually find the connection for.
Umm… when I took the 23 test, they actually provided a comprehensive autosomal analysis. I can even see on which chromosome I match a prospective relative.
Unless you’re aware of some policy change, your post is completely false.
Mediterranean phenotypes are hardly unknown in the British Isles. Remember it was occupied by the Romans for almost 400 years. Ancient genetic lines from all over continental Europe are present there. Colin Farrell would look right at home in Sicily or Sardinia but he is 100% Irish.
Did you read the post I responded to? The question wasn’t the value of the 23andMe, but the additional value of testing a close male relative. So I explained why female testers might have gotten the idea its important they recruit one.
Adding close relatives in general can be helpful for getting the most out of the autosomal matches, and I ought to have included that to avoid confusion.
I was just wondering what information they could get from a male sample that would not show up in a sample from a female.
Only men have a Y chromosome. From the Y chromosome is derived some information called a “Y-DNA Haplogroup”.
As noted above, women do not have a Y-DNA haplogroup, so they don’t get any new information from knowing your Y-DNA haplogroup UNLESS (and this is a big caveat) that they already know the Y-DNA haplogroup of some other male relative and intend to compare it to yours. That comparison could have all sorts of research value.
Thanks for the info.
Y-haplogroups provide a very crisp signal from the distant past. Each person has almost a septillion() 77-great grandparent slots from the time of Julius Caesar, but only one of these is the 77-great grandfather whose Y-chromosome he inherited. ( - Easy for me to remember. 
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By the time Britain was occupied, weren’t many or most of the Roman soldiers serving in distant provinces mercenaries? (Some researchers claim to be able to pinpoint such connections!) For example, the G Y-haplogroup — perhaps associated with Roman conscripts drawn from Sarmatian or Alan tribes — is at 2.5% in Cornwall, Devon, Wales but much lower in Scotland. (The Romans liked to deploy conscripts far from their homes to reduce desertion.)